By
1934, Jewish players had become commonplace at New York colleges. Jews occasionally played at Fordham, Manhattan, and Columbia,
but had more of a presence at CCNY, NYU, St.
John’s and LIU.
During the 1934 season, CCNY fielded an almost exclusively Jewish team while
St. John’s had
two Jewish starters and both NYU and LIU had four. These four schools proved important in
college basketball’s new model and each took advantage of the growth of Jewish
basketball as it related to the experience of New York Jews during the
Depression.
Historian
Beth Wenger illustrated that New York Jews survived the Depression in a better
position than other immigrant groups. A decade
of anxiety and economic insecurity intensified threats from American fascists
who supported Nazi Germany, but Jews avoided employment in the heavy industries
or large corporations, due in part to the belief that corporate anti-Semitism
would restrict upward mobility. Many
Jews found employment in the garment industry and white collar positions, or
owned small businesses. Their relatively
stable economic situation allowed Jews to attend college basketball games and
cheer on players from the Jewish neighborhoods of
New York.
New
York Jews did not constitute a unified community in the 1930s. Eighty percent of New York Jews lived in
Brooklyn and the
Bronx, and class divisions
remained strong even as differences in nationalities became less
important. Immigrant associations built
around identification with a region or town in eastern Europe had virtually no
appeal for native-born Jews who became more important in American Jewish life
due to immigration restriction. Their
world revolved around the neighborhood, whether a middle class neighborhood
like Flatbush or the working class neighborhoods of East New York and
Brownsville. By the 1930s, 75% of New York Jews lived in
“neighborhoods with predominantly Jewish populations.”
From the streets of
Brownsville
to the Williamsburg YMHA and the Brooklyn Jewish Center in
Eastern Parkway, playing basketball became
a daily experience for many young Jews in
New York.
The
Brooklyn Jewish Center (BJC) represented the changing demographic pattern of
New York Jews. The BJC was constructed
in 1920 as a ‘synagogue-center’ in the middle class neighborhood of
Eastern Parkway. Historian David Kaufman defined the
‘synagogue-center’ as “any institution whose program merges the religious, the
educational, and the social within one unified ‘center.’”
The ‘synagogue-center’ intended to merge
secular American life with Judaism, and in the early 1920s, the BJC served as
the “new
community center
of Brooklyn Jewry.” The building itself, an impressive structure
that served as a “functional institution,” reflected the architectural boom of
post-World War I America. The BJC placed
its gymnasium in the basement, along with a bowling alley, swimming pool,
billiard room, locker rooms, and the boiler room. The institution’s president hoped young
members would leave the “lower regions” of the gymnasium and look “upward where
Godliness and Holiness dwell.” He conceded, however, that “we would rather have
them in the Center’s basement than in Goyishe [non-Jewish] clubs and
organizations.” Other
‘synagogue-centers’ formed soon after the BJC and became an important part of
Brooklyn Jewish life.
The
BJC helped expand competitive basketball among New York Jews. In the 1920s, New York ‘synagogue-centers’ had formed the
Inter-Center Basketball League. During
the 1930s, the BJC competed against top local amateur teams, including the 92nd Street
YMHA, Union Temple, another ‘synagogue-center,’ and Ohrbach’s
Department store, which like other department stores, sponsored a team as a
promotional device. In 1936, the BJC won
the Kings County AAU
championship. Sam Schoenfeld, who also served
as the head basketball coach at Brooklyn’s Jefferson High School,
directed BJC basketball and produced a number of college players at both
locations, which contributed to the growth of Jewish basketball.
Along
with the BJC, a street culture in
Brownsville
contributed to Jewish basketball. Located
just east of middle class
Eastern
Parkway and eighty percent Jewish during the
Depression,
Brownsville
contained a vibrant Jewish culture and became known among some residents as the
“Jerusalem of America.” It served as the
home to Danny Kaye, Alfred Kazin and other young Jews who would later become
public figures. Poverty, however, existed
alongside its Jewishness. Outside the
Hebrew Educational Society (HES), there existed few neighborhood facilities and
resources. Wenger explained that streets
in working class neighborhoods often served as second homes. This certainly occurred in
Brownsville, where basketball players learned
the game on streets, playgrounds, and schoolyards.
The
Spalding basketball guide published
articles in 1929, 1931, and 1934 that captured the relationship among Jewish
neighborhood, college, and professional basketball. Contributor Barney Ain focused on the heavily
Jewish areas of
Brownsville and East New York
and explained in the first article that basketball “is now the principle
athletic sport in every section of
Brooklyn…Night
after night, hundred of teams, and thousands of players fought for supremacy on
every available playing court.” The
second article expanded on the impact of
Brooklyn
basketball as clubs and teams produced “more and better championship quintets
than any other section of the city.”
Finally, in 1934, Ain claimed
Brooklyn
“is recognized as the ‘Basketball Hotbed of the East.’” Jewish players in colleges, high schools,
middle schools, amateur clubs, ‘synagogue-centers,’ and other independent
organizations dominated his articles.
Street
basketball’s close relationship with the other forms of Jewish basketball
helped construct a fluid New York
basketball culture. Even as the New York mainstream press provided more attention to
college basketball during the 1934 season, they retained a relatively balanced
coverage of New York
basketball. Colleges, and sometimes the ABL,
received the most attention, but the press also provided information on more
obscure teams, leagues, and organizations.
On any given day, the New York
daily newspapers may have provided bold headlines of CCNY or NYU games as well
as results from the ABL, YMHA or YMCA games, municipal leagues, or AAU games
and tournaments. Soon after Ain’s third
article, however, promoters began to exploit this relationship and turned
college basketball into a modern, national spectacle.
